It’s been about a week since Apple rolled out its new advertising platform, and developers of iPhone apps are watching the earliest returns to see how much money they can expect to make from these ads.

Reuters

Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke about the iAd platform in April.

Several developers have reported seeing tremendous returns on the iAd platform, but those who spoke with Digits said they didn’t believe those results were sustainable.

One developer reported Thursday on Hacker News that he had earned $1,400 in one day via iAd, for a simple application that turns the flash on the iPhone 4’s camera into a flashlight. “I was quite surprised at the first day numbers from yesterday,” Jason Ting told Silicon Alley Insider. “I hope it keeps up!”

The amount he was earning for each ad placed in his application was far higher than the figures seen with an Android application using Google’s AdMob, technology blog The Next Web reported. For every thousand iAds that showed up in the application, the developer earned about $148; the similar statistic from the AdMob ad was less than $1.

The difference between earnings for iAd and other mobile advertisements comes down to two main factors: Apple is charging advertisers a lot, and users are clicking through Apple’s ads far more than usual. The latter factor is likely to change as the novelty of an ad from Apple wears off, even among Apple fans.

Another app designer, who released a simple application with iAd capability last week just to see what the results were like and entice people who wanted to see iAds, told Digits he saw rates even higher than $148 initially — but that the figures have declined over time.

“It’s back from the stratosphere,” said David Barnard of App Cubby of the ad earnings on his Mirror Free app, which uses the iPhone 4’s front-facing camera to turn the screen into a mirror. And the earnings on his other app, Gas Cubby, are even lower, likely because that app wasn’t designed to attract people who were specifically interested in seeing iAds. Mr. Barnard said he believes developers could eventually earn between $15 and $30 for every thousand iAds.

Another developer, Kenneth Ballenegger, said he was seeing $10 to $15 for every thousand iAds, but he also pointed out that Apple’s ads don’t refresh as quickly as other ads, meaning developers might not earn as much over time.

Another issue is that Apple has only two iAds out right now — one for Nissan and one for Unilever’s Dove brand — so it isn’t serving up a lot of ads into each application.

The amount iAds pay is “a high number when you get it, but you don’t get it very often,” said Dave Yonamine, the director of marketing at MobilityWare. The company’s earnings per 1,000 ads is 30 times higher with Apple than with Admob, he said — putting it lower than the astronomical $148 but still very high. But MobilityWare serves more than 100 million ads through various networks each month and has served a little more than 50,000 iAds so far, he added. “The total revenue level is pretty minuscule compared to our other [ad] networks,” he said. “We can’t rely on it yet.”

Developers can, however, use other networks even while using iAd. Ad-management platforms can fill space with an iAd if Apple is willing to serve one, or it can move on to the next ad on the list, served through Google, for example.